Wheatfield officials and residents gathered
at the town community center Wednesday where National Fuel representatives held
an information forum on a proposed natural gas dehydration facility near
Liberty Drive.

For the first hour of the event, residents
were able to speak one-on-one with National Fuel representatives on the
dehydrator.

Before
National Fuel began its presentation, Vice President of National Fuel Gas
Supply Corp. Ron Kraemer sat down with the Tribune to answer some of the common
questions asked by residents at recent town board meetings.

Hazardous Emissions

One major concern from residents is that
harmful and hazardous emissions coming from the dehydrator could cause negative
health effects for those living nearby.

Kraemer said heavy hydrocarbons, such as
propane, are removed to be sold before entering the pipeline system in
Pennsylvania. The gas entering the pipeline is the same gas "delivered right to
your house. So the gas out of this interstate pipeline system has to be ready
to be consumed by your furnace. ... So it has to be capable of doing that - it
has to be held to the quality to be able to do that."

The dehydration facility in Wheatfield would
remove moisture out of the natural gas stream flowing from Pennsylvania through
the interstate pipeline, most likely into Canada.

The U.S. standard for moisture content is
seven pounds per million. In Canada, it's only four pounds.

He said, often, the gas traveling through
the pipeline contains less than four pounds of moisture, therefore the
Wheatfield dehydrator will only be in operation at certain times throughout the
year, if any.

"It will not be running constantly," Kraemer
said. "We looked back over the last year and determined ... there would have only
been two days that the gas wasn't already dry enough that we'd even have to dry
it again," Kraemer said. "I think most of the time I'd say it's not going to
run. Most years I would say it won't run. I would say ... a rare year might run a
half a dozen times."

When the
dehydrator runs, the emissions that could be left over from the moisture and
disperse into the air are known as BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and
xylenes).

To further minimize the emissions, National
Fuel would install an additional facility known as a thermal oxidizer. After the moisture goes through this
piece of equipment, BTEX "are basically incinerated. They go through a very high
temperature chamber and they are burned up. ... So any water, moisture, that gets
boiled off of this ... that would go to the atmosphere - if there were any BTEX
in it - they go through this thermal oxidizer and 99 percent of that is taken
out. And the end result of that - you can't measure any of the BTEX. It's down
to such a low level of BTEX it is immeasurable," Kraemer said. Therefore, the 1
percent left over is "virtually nothing," he added.

To support Kraemer's explanation, an outside
consultant for National Fuel, Innovative Environmental Solutions Principal Jeff
Panek, said the level of possible emissions from the dehydrator is not harmful.

"The emissions from this facility are going
to be very, very low," he said. "We are in the lowest possible category for
permitting registration the state has."

Panek also said the gas will have already
gone through another dehydration facility before reaching Wheatfield.

"So, the pollutants that folks are concerned
about will have been further reduced even upstream," he said. "So by the time
they get here, there will be trace levels of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes. And that's the main
concern with the dehydration facilities."

Kraemer said, "The emissions, in my opinion,
are a non-issue. I hope we can explain that to people's satisfaction."

Future Development

Besides the dehydration facility itself,
residents have been concerned about possible future developments on the site
leading to installation of additional equipment and machinery.

Before the forum, Wheatfield Deputy
Supervisor Larry L. Helwig said, "I'm more scared of what might come down the
road than what may be here initially, because Cambria has a compressor station
and a glycol station."

Kraemer said there will not be a compressor
at the Wheatfield site.

"There is a big piece of property, most of
it's wetlands and not really usable," he said.

Furthermore, Kramer said that, even if they
wanted to expand, which they do not, they would not be able to due to the
wetlands.

Alternative Dehydration System

Some residents have researched alternative
dehydration methods that would not give off emissions.

"I know that our residents are really
concerned about the emissions. I'm hoping that we can really kind of push the
idea that we want the desiccant, which is the alternative," Wheatfield Action
Team member Jennifer Wozniak said. "National Fuel knows about the alternative.
It has not been tested in a higher production, which is what our dehydrator is
gong to be; however, there is one out there. So our whole goal is to get the
one with no emissions."

When asked about the use of an alternative
that would not give off any emissions, Kraemer said, "There's all kinds of
different drying devices, but they're not designed for 35 million cubic feet of
gas. ... This is a 20-foot pipeline that we're trying to dry, not a small stream
of gas that's going through some instrument or some small process. Those
desiccant dryers and those sorts of things are not capable - I mean the
facility would be just dozens of acres of these towers."

Like many residents, Wozniak is still
looking for an alternative to National's Fuel's dehydrator, despite National
Fuel's responses.

"National Fuel said they would need two
stacks for the glycol; they would need 12 for the desiccant," she said. "So,
obviously, that's going to be more expensive; but I don't care about that; I
care about the health and safety of our residents."

Kraemer noted, "Nothing's for nothing, as
they say. You still have to deal with that residue from desiccant that has to
be removed and disposed of."

Noise, Vibrations and Possible Explosions

Besides the issue of emissions, concern
among residents regarding noise and vibrations coming from the facility have
also been brought up.

Kraemer said, "There's none of it. The
closest house is about a half a mile away. ... You physically won't be able to
see it; you will not be able to hear it. There will be no smell from it. There
is no vibration from it."

Also, residents have been concerned about
possible explosions due to a mechanical malfunction.

"It's a mechanical facility. I can't tell
you that there is not risks," Kramer said. "Any mechanical facility has a risk
of some sort of accident, whether it's an industrial accident or a failure. But
this is being designed to the highest standard there is. There's different
(classifications) that you build to, and that brings with it the safety factor.
And we're designing it to a Class 3 standard, which is the highest standard of
design. So all of the pipeline - all of the vessels - are designed to that
highest standard."

Kraemer also said that, in the case of an
accident, National Fuel has facilities in Niagara Falls, Tonawanda and
employees on the road 24/7.

"We operate as a single company including
our utilities," he said. "So the people that respond to a gas leak in your
house are the same people that would respond to this facility and, frankly,
we'd be able to shut it in remotely from our gas dispatch center anyway if
there is any issue."

Resident Concerns Remain

After the presentation and the forum ended,
several residents said they were still concerned and not satisfied with National
Fuel's responses.

"I
felt that the forum could have been more a place that National Fuel Gas, as big
as they are, could have shown that they were going to be a 'good neighbor' by
giving us the information that they had, but then not dismiss our concerns like
they did," said Wheatfield Action Team member Mike Alianello, who lives about a
half mile from the proposed facility's location. "They could have taken our
concerns into consideration, did some research as to the possibilities of
addressing these concerns. ... National Fuel Gas wants us to take their word for
it and take the 'that's the way it is' attitude. Our health and welfare may be
in jeopardy."

Wozniak said, "National Fuel Gas's answers
did not make the residents feel any better. Many people saw through their
responses. They skimmed over some questions and cut off people. They have
clearly not done their research and just put this facility in an M1-industrial
place without any risk assessment about the surrounding community. This meeting
did nothing but anger our residents. We will keep fighting."

Ultimately, the decision on whether the
dehydrator will be approved to be installed in Wheatfield will be made by the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Wheatfield Town Supervisor Robert B. Cliffe
said, "Hopefully, newly informed residents, who remain concerned, can now
address their concerns to FERC through the FERC website so that FERC can give
them consideration prior to approval of this site."